On June 3, 2016, the late federal judge Claudio Bonadio dismissed Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in a case in which she had been denounced for usurpation of title and fraud against the public administration. She was accused of not having finished her law degree and therefore to claim the title of lawyer when it was not.
Bonadio – denounced and accused by Kirchnerism for various reasons – had closed the case after receiving information from the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the University of La Plata in which Fernández de Kirchner received his lawyer’s degree. For the judge there was no doubt: the documentation provided by the Faculty confirmed that the current Vice President of the Nation is a lawyer. Similar complaints had been filed in various federal courts that had filed the file. Bonadio went even further and dismissed Fernández de Kirchner.
He did it after having in his hands the photocopy of the registration form and admission to the law career, signed by the former president on September 15, 1971. To that document was added the copy of the record number 710 of the book of records of deliveries of titles. There it is stated that Fernández de Kirchner graduated as a lawyer from the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the National University of La Plata and withdrew her diploma on December 10, 1979. And finally, Bonadio had read a photocopy of the Complete analytical certificate containing the subjects taken by Fernández de Kirchner with the dates and respective grades.
On May 13, 2016, Bonadio had prosecuted Fernández de Kirchner for the first time. That first prosecution issued by the judge who died in 2020 was for the case of Future Dollar. Weeks after that resolution, Bonadio dismissed the vice president for the law degree case. The dismissal was final because the prosecutor Carlos Rívolo did not appeal.
Almost seven years after the dismissal a chronic whistleblower appeared in Comodoro Py to reiterate the proposal regarding the title of lawyer of Fernández de Kirchner.
The complaint was made on April 14, and the judge fell by lottery. Maria Servini who during 2023 is on duty with the prosecution headed by Franco Picardi. The prosecutor asked to dismiss the complaint for “absence of crime.” The judge dismissed the complaint and archived it.
In the opinion to which he agreed infobae Picardi gave a brief review of the complaint in which something recurring was argued: that the current Vice President of the Nation did not graduate in Law from the National University of La Plata. And that she therefore usurped the title of lawyer throughout her public life. The complainant made other considerations and also provided screenshots of various publications as evidence.
The prosecutor pointed out the aspects of the complaint that are questionable for him: “First, it is observed that, although the brief presented indicates the people he considers responsible for the crime that is being denounced (in principle, Cristina Fernández and the National University de La Plata), the truth is that no further data can be derived from it in relation to the facts foisted, beyond some journalistic news and websites.”
And he added: “In turn, it refers to the fact that the University of La Plata has disclosed the diploma and analytical certificate of the law degree that -in the words of the complainant- ‘according to them they express it would be the one that corresponds to Fernández as a student of that house of high academic studies. However, she has suspicions about its veracity, since she never had the original in sight, but omits to indicate any other data that would allow even minimally to sustain the challenge regarding the possible falsehood of the information provided by the University. Added to this, the presenter, instead of showing evidence to support the accusation made, bases his complaint mainly on the lack of evidence to prove otherwise. For example, he mentions that “of the classmates there is not a single one that can assert for sure that Cristina agreed to the title” (sic). On the other hand, it indicates that the accompanied documentary comes mostly from a search carried out “in networks”.
The prosecutor concluded that: “That’s how it is, the presentation made is to all lights vague and imprecise for not having provided any element in order to support the facts that he referred to, which prevents progress with the present investigation. Consequently, it does not follow that said information could constitute the possible commission of an illegal act.”
After describing the new complaint made by a regular of Comodoro Py as “vague and imprecise”, Picardi reviewed the dismissal issued by Bonadio in case 27.885/16. In that 2016 resolution it had been said that: “The National University of La Plata sent the photocopy of the record No. 710 in the book of records of delivery of titles, whose annotation states that Cristina Elisabet Fernández was received as a lawyer in the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences and withdrew the diploma on December 10, 1979″. And that “a certified photocopy of the registration form and admission to the law career was sent, signed by the named and dated in the City of La Plata on September 15, 1971.”
As Picardi transcribed in his opinion, Bonadio had determined that: “Given the results of the tests carried out during the investigation (…) and not noticing other measures of interest to be ordered, it would be appropriate to archive the present due to the non-existence of a crime” and added that “the matter dealt with herein was raised on three occasions, specifically in this jurisdiction before the Federal Courts No. 4, 5 and 12, having ordered the filing of the respective causes for the non-existence of a crime.”
For this reason, Picardi concluded: “Thus, it cannot be forgotten that, in the event that the present investigation continued in order to delve into the possible illegal conduct foisted on Cristina Elisabet Fernández by the complainant, this clearly would be about the same facts investigated in the aforementioned case No. 27.885/16, all of which would imply the overlapping of investigations and, therefore, a double jeopardy in affectation of the non bis in idem guarantee that has a constitutional nature”.
In the resolution of Servini to which he agreed infobae it was pointed out that: “The procedural purpose of this case refers to the same behavior as the one investigated before the National Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 11, that is, the accusation of the same conduct was specific, and is repeated in both times, in the same place, and in the same time period”.
The judge explained that: “Therefore, by sharing the position of the holder of the public action, the complaint that gave rise to this cause will be dismissed, by virtue of the provisions of art. 180, third paragraph, of the National Criminal Procedure Code. This is because it will not be possible to proceed with this investigation because the facts denounced in the presentation… were already analyzed within the framework of judicial file No. 27885/2016, which was resolved on June 3, 2016, from the Court’s registry. National Criminal and Correctional Federal No. 11, Secretariat No. 21. Said resolution obtained finality, for which it is a “res judicata.” So, in this case, the guarantee known as “ne bis in idem” is at stake, which, although our National Constitution did not originally expressly provide for it, has traditionally been recognized by jurisprudence as one of those not listed by article 33. of the magna carta”.
Thus, the presentation made by Fernando Miguez who defines himself as an “independent professional journalist and investigator” was dismissed by Judge Servini at the request of prosecutor Picardi. Filed case. Question closed. Again.
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